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The War of the Worlds (Dramatized)

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The War of the Worlds (Dramatized)

By: Orson Welles
Narrated by: Orson Welles
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About this listen

The original uncut Radio Broadcast.

On the evening of October 30th, 1938, Earth went to war with Mars. Martians invaded New Jersey!

Here, the famous panic broadcast that shook the world, starring Orson Welles.

©2012 ABN (P)2011 ABN Entertainment & Performing Arts Fantasy Science Fiction
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I absolutely adore War of the Worlds so I downloaded this when I wanted an audio version of one of my most favourite books. At the beginning I was thinking "How did this cause such mass hysteria when it was originally broadcast?" . As it went on though, weirdly I got it. It's just so brilliantly done and oddly convincing!! Love it.

Genius

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This is the legendary radio broadcast of Halloween 1938. Orson Welles's dramatisation of The War Of The Worlds is extremely well staged. Written and performed in the style of emergency radio transmissions of the time - complete at first with musical interludes - they do a very good job of persuading you of the horrific monstrosity of the invading martians and the - in some cases - absolutely vile actions they commit.

The dramatisation may be dated now especially since it was recorded on equipment we would now consider practically ancient and as such the audio quality and in some cases the personal attitudes of the characters in the play would be considered extremely old fashioned depending on your point of view but I still highly recommend people listen to this version. It became famous for a reason after all!

Another aspect of the drama I wish to praise is the relocation of the main focus of the invasion. Clearly in an attempt to modernise the original story to 1930s eyes and ears and his American audience Welles and his team successfully managed to relocate the play to a small rural area in New Jersey.

Unlike future modernisations or Americanisations - such as the 1950s film version in my view - I feel that in this less than an hour long version Welles does a better job of getting to the heart and the core of the story through the somewhat less than subtle anti-imperial subtext the original book version had than a lot of other versions I've heard

Long story short: It's a piece of sci-fi history that's less than hour long. It deserves its place in the pantheon alongside the original novel and the surprisingly good Jeff Wayne version. It's more than worth your time and money. Give it a listen.

A legendary broadcast which deserves praise!

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way ahead of its time. Difficult to imagine now with all our different forms of entertainment available to us that here was a time when it was just radio or cinema

Amazing

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Written and performed in such a way that you can see why it was thought to be real. Completely new interpretation compared to the book as well as the fact it was set in America. I was imagining more of a reading of the book but this is a piece of art in its own right.

Realistically performed

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Listen in to a World (sadly) long-gone. A superb title, which I thoroughly enjoyed.

Martians are coming!

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